Email Marketing News and Tips

Before sending out your HTML email newsletter, make sure the HTML code is clean. What I mean by this is, your code must follow the standard formatting. An “unclean” code may lead to problems related to how the email appears. Each Web browser and email program has its own set of rules as to how code is rendered. The end result? Browser A shows it normally but Browser B displays it that makes you scratch your head. Email Program A displays it fine but Email Program B decides to take a day off. The following are examples of what to look for when cleaning up your code:

1. extra tags. Ex: <div class=”header2″>Hello there, <p></div>
The <p> tag represents an extra tag

2. incorrectly-formatted tags. Ex: <font face=”Arial<Hi there</font>
Missing bracket for <font>

3. unclosed tags. Ex: <font size=”10″>Hello there <b>people</b>!
Missing the end tag for font </font>

4. incorrectly nested tags. Ex: <table><tr><td>Hello there</table></tr></td>
The closing tags should have been reversed in sequence.

If you use Microsoft Word to generate the HTML for you, watch out for things like:

<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=”text/html; charset=windows-1252″>
<meta name=ProgId content=Word.Document>
<meta name=Generator content=”Microsoft Word 9″>
<meta name=Originator content=”Microsoft Word 9″>
<link rel=File-List href=”./BWAE_instructions_files/filelist.xml”>
<title>MS Word to HTML</title>
<!–[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:DocumentProperties>
<o:Author>asipin</o:Author>
<o:LastAuthor>asipin</o:LastAuthor>
<o:Revision>2</o:Revision>

<style>
<!–
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-parent:”";

Cleaning up Word HTML can be a challenging task, especially if you’re not too familiar with HTML. BlastWizard’s HTML Editor has a built-in Word HTML cleanup feature. To learn more, please click here.

As with non-Word HTML cleanup tasks, there are other third-party tools that can help clean up your HTML code, such as Dreamweaver and HTML Tidy.

Happy cleaning!